Ahmed Kamel – Egypt Daily News
Israeli warplanes launched a series of synchronized aerial bombardments stretching from northern Gaza City down to the southern expanse of Khan Younis on Sunday, August 2, 2026. The devastating morning sorties killed at least 13 Palestinians, registering the highest single-day casualty count the territory has witnessed in multiple weeks.
The intensive bombardment enters its second consecutive day, directly defying United States President Donald Trump’s recent declaration of a historic breakthrough regarding a phased Hamas disarmament treaty.
According to provincial Palestinian health registries, the structural strikes struck deep into residential zones, destroying a house in the Mawasi displacement camp and hitting an apartment complex in Deir al-Balah. Field medics verified that the localized blasts set multiple refugee tents ablaze, killing several families alongside an initial count of young children. The Israel Defense Forces published a preliminary operational brief confirming that the Deir al-Balah strike specifically targeted and neutralized two prominent commanders belonging to Hamas’ elite Nukhba combat units, while alternative strikes remain under administrative review.
Netanyahu Cabinet Expresses Extreme Skepticism and Threatens Total Annexation of Remnant Territories
The sudden military escalation severely undermines the political optimism sparked by Trump’s newly unveiled 15-point peace roadmap, which is actively overseen by a diplomatic entity called the Board of Peace. On Sunday, Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen an influential member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner security cabinet, publicly confirmed during an interview with Army Radio that the government has signed no operational treaty to halt active combat operations in Gaza.
Cohen expressed profound skepticism regarding the likelihood of Hamas voluntarily surrendering its weapons stockpiles under the current framework.
The energy minister explicitly declared that a comprehensive and verifiable dismantling of Hamas remains Israel’s absolute, unalterable baseline demand under its joint defense agreements with the United States. Cohen warned that if the militant factions fail to disarm rapidly, he envisions a strategic necessity for the Israeli military to seize absolute governance over the entirety of the enclave. The state currently maintains structural control over approximately 70 percent of Gaza’s geographic territory, and senior defense planners are prepared to execute full administrative annexation if diplomatic benchmarks stall. [1]
Hamas Accuses Tel Aviv of Deliberately Sabotaging Cairo Negotiations to Force Territorial Subjugation
The intensifying air campaign has triggered a furious response from Hamas leadership hubs, who accuse the right-wing Israeli cabinet of deploying maximum physical violence to permanently hijack the political track. Senior Hamas official Basem Naim published an official statement asserting that the group has demonstrated considerable flexibility during the Cairo mediation rounds. Naim argued that Israel’s synchronized escalation is a calculated attempt to undermine international stabilization efforts and establish irreversible facts on the ground through raw military force.
Hamas negotiators continue to maintain that all heavy weapons assets will remain under localized Palestinian oversight until Israel executes a complete, verifiable withdrawal of its ground troops from the entirety of the strip. The compounding gridlock has prompted urgent backchannel interventions from regional diplomats, with former senior Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan confirming that Jared Kushner is actively working with Israeli envoys to enforce a localized halt to the attacks.
As the total Palestinian death toll since the October ceasefire framework climbs past 1,230, international security analysts warn that launching unilateral sorties during active treaty rollouts permanently threatens the survival of the broader Middle Eastern peace pyramid.
